Viggo Mortensen On 'Good', 'The Road', and 'The Hobbit'

Interviews with Viggo Mortensen are a rather rare and wonderful thing -- or at least ones that don't get all coy and snarky over his remarkable intelligence and publishing company. So, when I saw Capone's interview with Mortensen over at Ain't It Cool News, I had to share it with you all.

His thoughts on the upcoming Good are too long and interesting to crop and paste here -- but what I will post is his disappointment over The Roadbeing delayed. Despite starring in the film, he is unsure what's going on with it. "My understanding is that they know that they've got a story that a lot of people want to see, because of the book. And, the people that read the book, which are many, were very moved by it and by this relationship between this boy and this man, in particular, in that setting. And, I think that they are really aware of the fact that they've got one chance to do it, and if there's any little things that they still want to work on a little more, to get it just right, whether it's the music --I don't know what it is -- a variety of things, they want to do it right. And, if you rush it out before you feel in good conscience it's there ... So, I am disappointed. I wanted to see it. I want to see how it is."

He's also concerned that the film might be released at the wrong time of year, and is hoping for a fall release. "What I hope they don't do is then just put it out in February or something. I hope they wait and do it at the right time. I don't know." (Yes, Weinstein Co. Release The Road in the fall, please. No February or March dump!)

When asked about his participation in The Hobbit, Mortensen gave the answer he's repeated several times over, so I won't post that. But what I loved was his description of a cut scene from Lord of the Rings, and his theory on reusing it and similar appendix material. I've never heard about this scene before -- and someone will probably show me up by remembering it was described in a Peter Jackson interview, or on one of the film's commentaries, but here it is anyway:

"We shot a sequence, Liv Tyler and I, and it's in Lorien, and we're walking around, and it's when I'm still...you know, I'm wearing clothes that are more like something you'd see Legolas wearing. I have no beard. I have really long hair, and it's partly in a braid. And, I'm wearing definitely elvish kind of clothing. I look like some young elvish lord. And, I think, I'm barefoot, walking in these flowers with her. And, we're in that courtship period, you know, and because of our aging thing, we look similar. I look a little younger than usual, the no beard helps and all that. And, it's a memory, right, and it was meant to be used as one of those moments where I'm remembering something about her. They didn't use it. So, they could use that, and then they could shoot other things in that vein."

I hope, someday, there's some DVD released of all that lost footage, even the weird stuff like Arwen fighting at Helm's Deep. I can never get enough LOTR -- or Mortensen, for that matter. Check out the interview, and please, come back to engage in some Viggo Mortensen worship.